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This study outlines a typology of dystopias and narrative allegories about Communist Romania, discussing three famous novels: The Black Church by A. E. Baconsky, The Second Messenger by Bujor Nedelcovici, and Farewell, Europe! by Ion D. Sîrbu. The three novels were prohibited from being published during the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu and became drawer manuscripts, seeing the light of print only after the fall of Communism, in 1990, 1991, and 1992-1993. Baconsky’s novel circulated in samizdat (between 1976-1977) and was made into a series by the Munich-based Radio Free Europe, which broadcast clandestinely inside Romania. Nedelcovici’s novel was translated into French in 1985, and was very successful. In Romanian literature, Ion D. Sîrbu’s novel is considered the most important “drawer” work. All three novels, as dystopias, allegories and parables, focus on three recurrent topics: the world of oppressors, the world of victims and the method of brainwashing.

Cults are totalitarian groups or movements exhibiting devotion to a person, an idea or a thing, where a leader exercises power and control over the cult's members' behavior and uses their vulnerability and needs of affiliation, well-being, self-actualization and healing as a means of increasing suggestibility, dependency and conformity in order to advance his goals (West 1989). An unquestioning commitment and a fanatic way to achieve cult goals are characteristics that most attract the attention of outsiders, as well as of the clinicians, because group goals invalidate the members' ones, causing a conflict. To define a cult there must be a shared belief system, a high level of social cohesiveness, inflexible behavioral norms and a leader. There are two major perspectives that explain how cult groups actually work: the first one is the brainwashing perspective that suggests people join cults because they use coercive techniques of persuasion and plagiarism (Ross 2014; Singer 2003; Lifton 1961), the second one focuses on the possible psychotherapeutic effects associated with the affiliation to a cult (Wenegrat 1989; Galanter 1999). The purpose of this article is to clarify the cults phenomenon analyzing the interacting components and the psychological and social dynamics in order to understand cult member's goals and why they don't get out of the cult even when such goals are compromised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]